


Fake It Till You Make It

by bearonthecouch



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Background Relationships, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Ishval Civil War, M/M, POV First Person, POV Maes Hughes, Prompt: Fake It Till You Make It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 05:31:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17843390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: It's not like Roy talked incessantly about his teacher's kid – his stories were fragmented and often tumbled out only when he was drunk or half asleep. But from everything I knew about her, through him, of course she was the type of person who'd shoot an enemy sniper off of a superior officer, and then slow down enough to ask that same officer if he's okay. And mean it.I was still shaking noticeably, and Hawkeye was obviously sharp enough to notice. It was fading adrenaline or fading terror. Or both.“I'm fine,” I said, even though I clearly wasn't.- #HyuroiWeek Day 1: Prompt: Art of War -





	Fake It Till You Make It

**Author's Note:**

> Started from a writing prompt book. The prompt/story starter is in bold.

**I couldn't tell if she was truly confident – or just really good at faking it. And I know a thing or two about faking it. “Fake it till you make it,” my old man used to say. Of course, he also said** I was wasting my potential, I'd never learn my lesson, I couldn't be serious if my life depended on it. Maybe back then he was even right. But Ishval has a way of stripping everything down; it demands seriousness. All of our lives depend on it.

“So,” I said quietly, slipping into the empty seat across the table from the girl who had already earned a commendation for valor, less than a month into her war. “Thanks for saving my life out there.”

Riza Hawkeye's intense brown eyes flickered up to mine. “It's my job,” she said simply. There wasn't anything in her that was bragging, but that only highlighted her smooth composure in the face of this hell. How the fuck did she do it?

I let my eyes close, overcome by the heavy weight of exhaustion that dogged everyone in this place. When I opened them again, Cadet Hawkeye was frowning at me with obvious concern.

“Are you alright?” she asked softly. “Captain,” she added, half a second later.

I was already smiling. It's not like Roy talked incessantly about his teacher's kid – his stories were fragmented and often tumbled out only when he was drunk or half asleep. But from everything I knew about her, through him, of course she was the type of person who'd shoot an enemy sniper off of a superior officer, and then slow down enough to ask that same officer if he's okay. And mean it.

I was still shaking noticeably, and Hawkeye was obviously sharp enough to notice. It was fading adrenaline or fading terror. Or both.

“I'm fine,” I said, even though I clearly wasn't. I can fake it, too.

Hawkeye had the grace not to draw attention to my lie. I sighed heavily, and rubbed at a headache forming above my right eye. My other hand remained curled around the bench seat, my arm pressed close against my body, pressed against the bullet wound under my uniform, the months-old scar ugly and rough. If I never had a near-death experience again, it would be too soon. And yet it didn't feel like this war could ever end.

When I glanced up again, Hawkeye was no longer looking at me. “Are you going to eat?” I asked her.

“What?”

“Mess tent,” I reminded her, waving my arm around the large and crowded space. “Were you planning on getting some chow?” She bit her lip, and she looked so fucking _young_ at that moment. Not that I was ancient, at the age of 24, but I had years of experience on her. “You're hungrier than you think you are.”

She looked at me for another fleeting moment that lasted forever, and then nodded slowly. We didn't talk again until we'd grabbed our trays, slopped with military grade mystery meat, imitation potatoes, and gravy that was vaguely reminiscent of urine. I didn't complain. The Ishvalans, cut off from trade, were starving. I cast a sidelong glance at Hawkeye, wondering if she could read my guilt. But what was I feeling guilty for? What I was doing, or caring that I was doing it?

One of them had tried to shoot me less than an hour ago. Command drew no distinction between the armed rebels and the starving children. _Did I?_

I shoveled a few forkfuls of food into my mouth to buy myself a minute of silence. When I swallowed the last of it, Hawkeye was staring at me. I could feel myself blushing. Damn, I was tired. “What?” I asked. My head still throbbed. My voice was halfway between a snap and a whine.

Hawkeye had pushed her tray, still half full, into the middle of the table. Toward mine.  
  
“Have you ever seen what he can do?” she said. Her voice was still soft and serious. It hadn't changed pitch through our entire conversation. Only the fact that I'd been trained to read people cued me into the fact that she was just as tired and soulsick as I was.  
  
I nodded. There was no need for her to define the pronoun. Roy Mustang was so much larger than life that we were both caught in his orbit.  
  
“The fire stuff.” It wasn't a question, but Riza nodded subtly, and I continued. “A little. It's not like he flashes it around.” Not to me, not in camp. He hates it too much to play with it. He hates _himself_ too much for knowing how to do it in the first place.

He crawls into my tent with eyes reddened by alcohol and tears. We never talk about fire.

It was only when I looked up that I noticed Hawkeye was drawing, tracing invisible shapes with her finger on the rough tabletop. I frowned as I watched her do it. Circles and triangles. Mustang's array. “Holy shit,” I whispered, as my eyes met hers. “You can do it too?”

She shook her head, but again, I'd been trained to read people, and there was no mistaking the guilt that flashed across her features. “I'm not an alchemist, Captain Hughes,” she demanded.

“Maes.”

The look on her face made it obvious what she thought about calling a superior officer by his first name.

I sighed heavily. “I'm sleeping with your childhood best friend. I think that puts us on a first name basis, don't you?”

Hawkeye didn't look surprised, exactly, but she didn't look comfortable either. “He never talks about you.”

“He talks about you all the time,” I countered, because 'only when drunk or half asleep' was still 90% of the time I spent with him.

“You don't have to be jealous. I've never slept with Major Mustang.”

She wasn't smiling, exactly, but there was something in her eyes that made it obvious she was teasing me, at the same time as she was telling the truth.

I did smile. “I'm not jealous,” I said. Also the truth. “I wouldn't be jealous even if you were sleeping with him."

“I wasn't asking your permission.”

“I know.”

The sniper Hawkeye had taken out was most likely aiming for the Flame Alchemist rather than me. By shooting that Ishvalan, she was protecting Roy. The fact that she also saved me in the process was probably an accident. And Roy and I weren't even technically on duty in this latest episode of getting shot at.

I was used to it. Roy wasn't. He'd been in the war zone for far less time than I had. And Riza had been here for even less than that.

“How is he?” I started, easing into the question I really wanted to ask.

“Shaken up enough to be avoiding me.”

I nodded agreement. Not surprising. Fair enough.

“How are _you_?”

Hawkeye was obviously troubled, but she just shrugged. She didn't look directly at me. “It's pretty safe up in the places where I hide.”

I didn't respond to that. What was I supposed to say? That if she could shoot an Ishvalan firing from a 'safe' sniper's nest, they could easily do the same to her? She already knew that.

And despite the fact that I was supposed to be the senior officer and therefore the reassuring one in this conversation, the fact was, I was still reassured by her confidence. Or possibly her ability to fake it.

From what I did know, her childhood and mine were polar opposites in terms of parental involvement. But we'd both missed out when it came to earning our father's approval. It sucked, but I didn't really know how to say so.

So, rather than say anything, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a couple of broken cookies wrapped in a napkin. “They probably have sand in them. Sorry.” Hawkeye looked at the cookies as though she'd never seen anything like them. “I usually give them to Roy, but he's getting his own care package from Central any day now, I bet.”

“You're giving me cookies?”

“You saved my life. I mean, I'm aware that's nowhere near an equivalent trade, but I'm not sure what else I can offer.”

“Good thing neither of us are alchemists.” Hawkeye did smile as she nibbled on one of the cookies, slowly and carefully.

“Maes,” she said, hesitantly testing the first name thing as I got to my feet and stretched tired muscles. I killed my movement and looked her in the eye. “Take care of him.”  
  
I was nodding before she even finished the sentence. In exchange for saving my life, Riza Hawkeye wanted me to protect Mustang's.

“Yeah,” I promised, with a soft smile. “Sure. I can definitely do that.” And that time, I wasn't even faking the confidence I felt.

 


End file.
